Stånga is a

locality Locality may refer to: * Locality, a historical named location or place in Canada * Locality (association), an association of community regeneration organizations in England * Locality (linguistics) * Locality (settlement) * Suburbs and localitie ...

on the Swedish island of

Gotland Gotland (; ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a Provinces of Sweden, province/Counties of Sweden, county (Swedish län), Municipalities of Sweden, municipality, a ...

, with 491 inhabitants in 2014. Stånga is also the name of the larger populated area,

socken Socken ( or ) is the name used for a part of a counties of Sweden, county in Sweden. In Denmark, similar areas are known as , in Norway or and in Finland or . A is a rural area formed around a church, typically in the Middle Ages. A socken ...

(not to be confused with

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

). It comprises the same area as the administrative Stånga District, established on 1January 2016. Stånga is most noted for hosting the annual

Stånga Games The Stånga Games (in Swedish Stångaspelen), also referred to as the "Gotland Olympic Games", is an annual sports competition in Stånga on the Swedish island of Gotland. The first Stånga Games were held on 27 July 1924. The games are held duri ...

().

Geography

Stånga is the name of the locality surrounding the

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

Stånga Church Stånga Church () is a medieval church in Stånga on the Sweden, Swedish island of Gotland. The site of the church has probably been considered sacred since before the Christianization of Scandinavia. The oldest parts of the current stone church ...

, sometimes referred to as ''Stånga kyrkby''. It is also the name of the socken as well as the district. Stånga is located in the southeast part of Gotland. , Stånga Church belongs to Stånga-Burs

in Burs

pastorat The Church of Sweden () is an Evangelical Lutheran national church in Sweden. A former state church, headquartered in Uppsala, with around 5.5 million members at year end 2023, it is the largest Christian denomination in Sweden, the largest Lu ...

, along with the church in

Burs BURS (bottom-up rewrite system) theory tackles the problem of taking a complex expression tree or intermediate language term and finding a good translation to machine code for a particular architecture. Implementations of BURS often employ dynam ...

. One of the

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s in the

asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...

10131 Stånga 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

, is named after this place.

Stånga Games

The Stånga Games (''Stångaspelen''), also referred to as the "Gotland Olympic Games", is an annual sports competition in Stånga. The first games were concluded on 27 July 1924. The games are held during five days around the second weekend in July and gathers about 2000 participants. Competitions are held in various

Gutnish Gutnish ( ), or rarely Gutnic ( or ), is a North Germanic language spoken sporadically on the islands of Gotland and Fårö. The different dialects of Gutnish, while stemming from the Old Gutnish () variety of Old Norse, are sometimes considere ...

disciplines, some dating back to the

Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...

. The sports include

Varpa Varpa is an outdoor game of physical skill that allegedly dates back to the Viking Age and survived in Gotland. It is similar to boules and horseshoes but is played with a flat and heavy object called a "varpa" instead of balls. Varpas used to ...

Pärk Pärk or Paerk is a game somewhat similar to a game of baseball but where the aim is to gain ground like in American football, that has been played for centuries on the island of Gotland in Baltic Sea. The game is played with two teams of 7 people ...

Caber toss The caber toss () is a traditional Scottish athletic event in which competitors toss a large tapered pole called a "caber" (), normally practised at the Scottish Highland Games. The term "caber" derives from the Gaelic word ''cabar'', whi ...

, Gutnish

pentathlon A pentathlon is a contest featuring five events. The name is derived from Greek language, Greek: combining the words ''pente'' (five) and -''athlon'' (competition) (). The first pentathlon was documented in Ancient Greece and was part of the Anci ...

Pillow fight A pillow fight is a common game mostly played by young children (but also by teens and adults) in which they engage in mock physical conflict, using pillows as weapons. Pillow fights often occur during children's sleepovers. Since pillows ...

on a pole (''Herre på stång''), Leg hook (''Rövkrok''), Hobble kick (''Sparka Bleistre''),

Tug of war Tug of war (also known as tug o' war, tug war, rope war, rope pulling, or tugging war) is a sport in which two teams compete by pulling on opposite ends of a rope, with the goal of bringing the rope a certain distance in one direction against ...

, eight-man teams (''Dragkamp''), Two-men tug of war, facing (''Att dra hank''), Two-men tug of war, back to back (''Att täme stäut'') etc.

References

External links

*
Objects from Stånga at the Digital Museum
by

Nordic Museum The Nordic Museum () is a museum located on Djurgården, an island in central Stockholm, Sweden, dedicated to the cultural history and ethnography of Sweden from the early modern period (in Swedish history, it is said to begin in 1520) to the ...

Populated places in Gotland County {{Gotland-geo-stub